How are our cities becoming smart? Ayesha Khanna, one of the world's leading experts in Artificial Intelligence, addresses this question. Her approach is to connect AI with human values. This also leads to Khanna preferring moral values to big money. FOCUS Online presents the woman from Singapore.

Artificial Intelligence (AI) is the current meta-trend - and for many still a book with seven seals. For Ayesha Khanna, on the other hand, she is the solution to many contemporary problems, such as living in crowded cities.

The AI expert living in Singapore is above all pleading for the ethical handling and use of the technology. Her credo: "The goal of KI is to expand human potential." For example, the CEO of an Artificial Intelligence consultancy has already rejected orders because clients seemed too immoral to her.

Several years ago, she received a request from a doctor who wanted to use artificial intelligence to improve his patients' ability to concentrate. Actually a good project.

But then Khanna asked leading doctors about the potential client and learned that the doctor was well-known for controversial treatment methods, as the AI expert told the Neue Zürcher Zeitung. Khanna declined the order.

Khanna is one of the most important AI experts in Asia

With her company Addo AI, the co-founder advises companies that want to use AI or already use it. One focus is on the strategic development of AI concepts for smart cities.

In the scene, the woman from Singapore is something like the shooting star. The magazine "Forbes" ranked Khanna's consulting agency Addo AI in 2017 among the top four AI companies in Asia. Khanna herself was named "Forbes" last year as one of the most important and important female entrepreneurs in Southeast Asia.

Addo AI's goal is to have all developed products reviewed again by AI science experts, so that there is a link between business and research, as it says on the company's website.

Give young women access to AI classes

In the past, Khanna worked ten years on Wall Street, where he acquired skills in risk management and data analysis. In addition, Khanna co-founded the Hybrid Reality Institute, which explores the social and economic impact of technology. In addition, she led the Future Cities Group of the London School of Economics. And is the author of several books.

Young women want to encourage Khanna to deal with AI. In 2014 she founded the initiative 21C Girls in Singapore, which offers Asian girls workshops in programming and coding.

Her focus is on smart cities. With Addo AI, her team is developing concepts to make megacities around the world fit for a bright future with artificial intelligence - for example in the transport sector. How urgent sustainable cities are, according to Khanna, is demonstrated by the enormous urbanization and the population flow in the metropolises. A trend, according to Khanna, which can be observed worldwide, which already shows the growing number of mega-cities.

"A day in a smart city will hopefully give us more time"

Khanna sees the benefits of a smart city: "A day in such a city will hopefully give us more time, we will not have to drive ourselves, fill out forms, free our minds of automated actions to be creative, it works well in Singapore, this is not just a smart city, but a smart nation. "

It is important to the expert that artificial intelligence can never be the sole key to a solution. Man also plays an important role in the application possibilities of AI. "One thing does not work without the other," says Khanna. It's about a human approach to smart cities and the topic in general.